In the annals of crime of this terrible century,
Indonesia's assault against East Timor ranks high, not only because of
its scale - perhaps the greatest death toll relative to the population
since the Holocaust - but because it would have been so easy to
prevent, and to bring to an end at any time. There is no need for
threats to bomb Jakarta, or even to impose sanctions on the aggressor.
It would suffice for the great powers to refrain from their eager
participation in Indonesia's crimes - to stop putting guns into the
hands of the killers and torturers while joining them in robbery of
the offshore oil of the Timor Gap.

There is no excuse for any ignorance about these matters with the
appearance of the 1994 edition of John Pilger's book, Distant Voices,
with its powerful and revealing chapters on East Timor.

Two years ago, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said that his
government faced an important choice on East Timor, which had become
"like a sharp piece of gravel in our shoes." Benedict Anderson, a
leading specialist on Indonesia, took this to be one of many signs of
second thoughts: "Alatas doesn't spell out what the choice is,"
Anderson commented, "but he's implying you should take your shoe off
and get rid of the gravel."

The gravel was not sharpened by Western power. Quite the contrary:
the West and Japan have been willing partners in Indonesia's conquest
and annexation of the former Portuguese colony. As Pilger documents,
it was well before Indonesia began its campaign of subversion and
terror in 1975, followed by direct invasion on December 7, that the
British Embassy in Jakarta reported, "Certainly as seen from here it
is in Britain's interest that Indonesia should absorb the territory as
soon as and as unobtrusively as possible; and that if it comes to the
crunch and there is a row in the United Nations we should keep our
heads down and avoid siding against the Indonesian government."

Australia shared this judgment. Pilger describes how in August
1975, Ambassador to Jakarta Richard Woolcott advised in secret cables
that Australia take "a pragmatic rather than a principled stand" with
regard to the forthcoming invasion because "that is what national
interest and foreign policy is all about." Along with the ritual
reference to "the Australian defence interest," Woolcott suggested
that a favourable treaty on the Timor Gap "could be much more readily
negotiated with Indonesia . . . than with Portugal or independent
Portuguese Timor." He recommended a preference for "Kissingerian
realism" over "Wilsonian idealism" - a distinction that can perhaps be
detected in actual practice, with a powerful enough microscope.

The reasons for support for Indonesia's crimes went well beyond oil
and "defence interests", including control of a deep-water passage for
nuclear submarines. Indonesia has been an honoured ally ever since
General Suharto came to power in 1965 with a "boiling bloodbath" that
was "The West's best news for years in Asia" (Time), a "staggering
mass slaughter of Communists and pro-Communists", mostly landless
peasants, that provided a "gleam of light in Asia" (New York Times).
Euphoria knew no bounds, along with praise for the "Indonesian
moderates" who prevailed (NYT) and their leader, who is "at heart
benign" (Economist).

Not only did the welcome bloodbath destroy the only mass-based
political party in Indonesia, but it opened the rich resources of the
country to Western exploitation and even justified the American war in
Vietnam, which "provided a shield for the sharp reversal of
Indonesia's shift toward Communism," as Freedom House soberly
explained with no reservations. Such favours are not quickly
forgotten.

Woolcott offered some illustrations of "Kissingerian realism".
Noting with diplomatic understatement that "The United States might
have some influence on Indonesia at present", he reported that
Kissinger had instructed US Ambassador David Newsom to avoid the Timor
issue and cut down Embassy reporting, allowing "events to take their
course". Newsom informed Woolcott that if Indonesia were to invade,
the US hoped it would do so "effectively, quickly, and not use our
equipment" - 90 per cent of its weapons supply.

Another lesson in realism was given by UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, celebrated for his courageous defence of international law
and human rights. "The United States wished things to turn out as they
did," he writes in his memoirs, "and worked to bring this about. The
Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly
ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to
me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success." Moynihan
cites figures of 60,000 killed in the first few months, "almost the
proportion of casualties experienced by the Soviet Union during the
second world war," a foretaste of still greater successes soon to
come.

Western governments were fully aware of what was happening
throughout, contrary to subsequent pretence. As revealed in leaked
internal records, Kissinger's worst fear was that his complicity in
the aggression might become public, and "used against me" by real or
imagined political enemies. Cable traffic shows that after "Suharto
was given the green light" the main concern of the Embassy and State
Department was "about the problems that would be created for us if the
public and Congress became aware" of the American role, according to
Philip Liechty, then a senior CIA officer in Jakarta, in an interview
with Pilger.

Weapons provided by the US were limited strictly to self-defence.
That posed no problem for Kissingerian realism: "And we can't construe
a Communist government in the middle of Indonesia as self defence?"
Kissinger asked with derision when the question was raised in internal
discussion. An independent East Timor would be "communist" by the
usual criteria: it might not follow orders in a sprightly enough
manner, interfering with the "national interest". New arms were sent
including counter-insurgency equipment; "everything that you need to
fight a major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns," Liechty
comments, adding that the advanced military equipment proved decisive,
as other sources confirm. Had there been a challenge, ample precedent
could have been cited. "Great souls care little for small morals,"
another statesman observed two centuries ago.

By 1977 Indonesia found itself short of weapons, an indication of
the scale of its attack. The Carter Administration accelerated the
arms flow. Britain joined in as atrocities peaked in 1978, while
France announced that it would sell arms to Indonesia and protect it
from any public "embarrassment". Others, too, sought to gain what
profit they could from the slaughter and torture of Timorese.

The press added its contribution. Coverage of East Timor in the
United States had been high in 1974-5, amidst concerns over the
break-up of the Portuguese empire. As another "boiling bloodbath"
proceeded, coverage declined, keeping largely to the lies and
apologetics of the State Department and Indonesian generals. By 1978,
as the slaughter reached genocidal levels, coverage reached flat zero.
The same was true in Canada, another leading supporter of Indonesia.

In 1990, the issue of Timor received some attention when Iraq
invaded Kuwait, eliciting a response from the West rather unlike its
reaction to Indonesia's vastly more bloody invasion and annexation of
a small oil-rich country next door. Much ingenuity was displayed in
explaining that the distinction did not lie in the locus of power and
profit, but in some more subtle quality that preserves Anglo-American
virtue. Similar gyrations had been undertaken a decade earlier to
justify the radically different reaction to simultaneous atrocities in
Cambodia and Timor; crucially different, to be sure, in that the
latter could have been readily terminated.

Some commentators were forthright. Australian foreign minister
Gareth Evans explained in 1990, "The world is a pretty unfair place,
littered with examples of acquisition by force." Since "there is no
binding legal obligation not to recognise the acquisition of territory
that was acquired by force," Australia may proceed to share Timor's
oil with the conqueror. The dispensation would presumably not have
extended to a Libya-Iraq treaty on Kuwaiti oil. Meanwhile prime
minister Hawke declared that "big countries cannot invade small
neighbours and get away with it" (referring to Iraq and Kuwait);
"would-be aggressors will think twice before invading smaller
neighbours," secure in the lesson that "the rule of law must prevail
over the rule of force in international relations" - at least, when
the "national interest" so dictates.

The Timor issue reached threshold again in November 1991, when
Indonesian troops attacked a graveyard commemoration of an earlier
assassination, massacring hundreds of people and severely beating two
US reporters. The tactical error called for the standard cover-up,
deemed satisfactory by Western leaders. Oil exploration proceeded on
course; contracts with Australian, British, Japanese, Dutch, and
American companies were reported in the six months following the
massacre. "To the capitalist governors," a Timorese priest wrote,
"Timor's petroleum smells better than Timorese blood and tears."

The primary reason why Indonesia might consider "taking the shoe
off" is given in the final words of Pilger's chapters on East Timor.
The reason, he writes, is "the enduring heroism of the people of East
Timor, who continue to resist the invaders even as the crosses
multiply on the hillsides," a constant "reminder of the fallibility of
brute power and of the cynicism of others".

However courageous they may be, the people of East Timor have no
hope without outside support. No amount of courage and unity will
prevent Indonesian transmigration, atrocities, and destruction of the
indigenous culture, funded and supported by the great powers.

Though the pace has been glacial, support for Timorese rights has
finally reached a significant level in the United States. The truth
began to seep into the public domain, compelling the media to take
some notice and raising impediments to the "pragmatic course".

A headline in the Boston Globe on the anniversary of the 1991
massacre reads: "Indonesian general, facing suit, flees Boston." Sent
to study at Harvard after the massacre, the general was charged in a
suit on behalf of a woman whose son was among those murdered in the
graveyard (as were many more afterwards, as revealed by Pilger and the
courageous Indonesian academic George Aditjondro, who released
investigations based on 20 years' research that supports the most
gruesome estimates of atrocities).

Popular awareness and activism have become strong enough so that
favoured mass murderers can no longer find a comfortable refuge in the
United States, as had been learned a year earlier by one of
Guatemala's leading killers, General Hector Gramajo, in a similar
manner.

Congress has imposed barriers on military aid and training, which
the White House has had to evade in ever more devious ways,
particularly in recent months. Sensing the opportunity, Britain moved
effectively under Thatcher's guiding hand to take first place in the
highly profitable enterprise of war crimes. As explained by defence
procurement minister Alan Clark, "I don't re ally fill my mind much
with what one set of foreigners is doing to another" when there is
money to be made by arms sales. We must insist on "reserving the right
to bomb niggers," as Lloyd George recognised 60 years ago.

John Pilger's recent work, including the remarkable documentary
Death Of A Nation, based on his visit to East Timor, threatens to
arouse the Western public to a heightened awareness of what is being
perpetrated in their names. Its great significance is attested by the
angry response it has evoked from high government officials. To draw
aside the veils of deceit that conceal the real world is no small
achievement. But it will join other failed efforts unless the public
response goes beyond mere awareness, to actions to end shameful
complicity in crime.